Thursday, June 23, 2005

moot agony

So the moot court team selection process goes like this: you e-mail responses to questions like whether you prefer tax or the first amendment and whether you yearn to lead or happily follow. Then the upperclass moot courters have what they ambitiously call a party. During the so-called "party" they call each future moot courter into a room and ask a few other questions, like whether there is anyone you hate so much you're willing to admit it to strangers, and why it is you want the team you want.

As far as I know it's done this way every year. This is notable because it would seem like the kinks in this whole procedure would have been worked out by now. When the process was described to me it sounded vaguely fun. I pictured lawns and keg cups, maybe even bare feet. I did not picture a completely empty luxury apartment that someone's boyfriend's parents had been trying to sell for millions about 5 minutes before we all arrived. Parties, especially parties where people end up waiting around for 5 hours, should have furniture. Parties should also have music. Luckily the apartment was spacious enough to have windowsills you can sit on. But their capacity was limited, and by the end it felt like an airport during a blizzard. People piled up against each other on the hardwood floors, periodically marching over to the helpless listkeeper to demand she get them out of there.

If I were forced to narrow down the problems to just one, it would be the particularly poor process for ordering who got called into the magic room. At first, there was a list for people that had to leave early. Sometime when I was refilling my wine or foraging for the baby carrots that would become my dinner, I guess they started having the remainder of the people sign that list also. That itself was a little lame, but acceptable. Things really got ugly when phase 3 began: whoever whined the most (or the most convincingly) got bumped up. This had now verged into unacceptable territory.

I really thought people were going to start throwing things, or screaming, or even quitting moot court. Pretty soon no one was talking about anything but how much the situation sucked, and I vacillated between not being able to believe people cared all that much and agreeing with everything they said because it did really, truly suck.

5 Comments:

i was there, too, and i found the whole "order in which we were interviewed" to be a bit ridiculous. you did a fantastic job describing the entire evening, but i'd like to elaborate on the "order" if i may...

first, there was verbal acknowledgement of who had to leave early. then, there was a list, because too many people "had to leave early." (please note: i think it's safe to say that the vast majority of the team, if not all, had to wake up early for a summer job the next day!) next, as you correctly pointed out, EVERYONE was added to that list. left with no way to determine who had to leave early, the woman in charge of the list began circling names for early departure. once 90% of the names were circled, a new method needed to be found. ultimatums were placed next to each names, as in, if i'm not interviewed by 11pm, i'm out. then, individuals were given numbers. in the end, i think just about everything on the list was ignored and it was more or less a whining competition.

it summarily failed, so i had a cigarette, partook of the white whine, and got really drunk, meaning my interview was fairly useless.

i didn't get home until after midnight. i felt bad for the girl with the list, but c'mon, this wasn't sit-down dinner for 400 (which, incidentally, can be executed with far less complication in about an hour less) - it was like 40 interviews. i don't understand why it was so difficult, but at least i got some free boze.